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"Earn great money" when you drive with Uber, the ridesharing site says. "TaskRabbit is the smart way to work [and helps] you build your business," advertises that site for getting odd jobs done. The gig economy has been a darling of Silicon Valley and Wall Street. And why not? An explosion of Internet companies have matched consumers and companies that want something done with individuals willing to do the work, meaning a great solution, in part, to income inequality.

Some people apparently do well, like Brian Schrier, a 45-year-old handyman who reportedly earns between $6,000 and $7,000 per month through TaskRabbit. The promise of profitable independence has lured millions to do business through the likes of Uber Technologies and Lyft (car services), TaskRabbit and Gigwalk (odd jobs), DogVacay and Rover (pet sitting), Airbnb and HomeAway (vacation rentals), and many others.

FILE - In this March 12, 2014 file photo, Katie Baranyuk gets out of a car driven by Dara Jenkins, a driver for the ride-sharing service Lyft, after getting a ride to downtown Seattle. The Labor Department on Wednesday, July 15, 2015 issued new guidance intended to help companies answer whether a worker is an employee or a contractor. The issue has taken on greater urgency with the growth of sharing-economy firms such as Lyft, Uber and TaskRabbit, which increasingly rely on independent workers, often for short-term projects. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

Only, the reality for many falls far short of the hype and the great solution has significant complications. According to a combination of third-party reports, information from the Department of Labor, and interviews with service providers, money typically falls far short of the promoted lofty heights. And because matchmakers treat them as independent contractors, service providers are on the hook for tax withholding, financial risk from being hurt on the job, and liability coverage. Forget such worker protections as workers comp insurance, minimum wage payments, and overtime.

Wall Street good doesn't necessarily trickle down

The delight of high tech investors is due in large part to the basic business model. The matchmakers effectively satisfy customers without having to bear the real cost of providing the services. By insisting on using only independent contractors, not only have they isolated themselves from many financial responsibilities, but they have been able to scale up their operations quickly. Billions of dollars have been poured into the sector. Uber and Airbnb in particular have made the Fortune Unicorn list of startups that have valuations of $1 billion or more based on fund raising.

The great deal for the companies and their investors doesn't trickle down to the masses on mobile phones, checking to see when the next "opportunity" presents itself.

Sara Doughty told me that she has worked through TaskRabbit in Portland, Oregon for three years, even though she has a full-time job as a database administrator. She finds that the pay for furniture assembly, moving, hauling, and garage organizing averages about $25 an hour. "It depends on how much time I have to dedicate to it and how many jobs are out there," she said. "Apparently I'm in a smaller market and I don't know how much advertising [TaskRabbit has] done up here."

Doughty is actually doing well compared to median wages in the gig economy. The average hourly wage for manual work was $15, or significantly less than Doughty makes, let alone $125 an hour, according to a survey, by the firm Requests for Startups (RFS), of 1330 people who worked through a group of 78 gig economy companies.

The RFS survey said that ride-sharing driver median pay was $25 an hour. Even working 52 weeks a year, it would take a 70-hour-week to hit the New York $90,766 annual median pay. But according to Uber's own data, even that is unrealistic. Median income for Uber drivers runs between $17 and $22 an hour, according to an analysis by by Alan Krueger, a Princeton professor of economics and public affairs, and Jonathan Hall, who heads policy research at Uber. The following table shows median hourly earnings of Uber drivers in Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, some of the busiest markets, compared to hourly wages of taxi and limo employees according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Even at the Uber median income of $30.35 in New York, a $90,000 annual haul would require 57 hours of work a week for a 52-week year with no time off.

Uber drivers seem to be doing better than cab drivers, but being independent their costs of gas, auto payments, maintenance, tolls and other costs of running their businesses.

Harry Campbell, an aerospace engineer who has driven for Uber and its competitor, Lyft, runs a driver blog and podcast called the Rideshare Guy. "The biggest problem with some of these companies is they like to give their income numbers before accounting for expenses," he told me.

When I asked Uber what driver expenses could run, the company responded that it didn't want to speculate on costs that it couldn't directly observe, although it did send estimates to journalist Felix Salmon last year:

Self-employed workers meet business realities

A question remains of whether workers understand what they're letting themselves in for. One pet sitting service provider working through Rover.com told me that she probably made between $8,000 and $10,000 last year just between Thanksgiving and New Year's. But when asked about taxes, the provider, who wished to remain anonymous, said she didn't "have an accountant" and was unaware that she would owe taxes on any income, net of deductible expenses, that she made. "We didn't have to fill out anything through Rover," she said. "They never gave us anything. I don't know how any taxes would be deducted. My mother has been saying for years that I should get an accountant." Perhaps she should have listened.

Although many independent businesspeople get reminders of their income from clients through IRS 1099 forms filed after the year closes, some of the services, like TaskRabbit and Rover, use a loophole that allows companies making payments through a credit card or service like PayPal to skip sending 1099s.

I asked to speak with someone from Rover and TaskRabbit, but neither company provided someone.

Charles Perry provides bicycle delivery of restaurant food in Chicago through Postmates and earns only "beer money" on the weekends.

"There's going to be a reckoning around [expenses and filing taxes] for the companies that employ legions of people as contractors," he told me. "I don't make my primary income from this. But if I did, I would be concerned."

Are there opportunities in the gig economy? Certainly, particularly for someone who wants to work part-time only and make extra money on the side. But the reality can be a shock. "I've had Uber drivers [I rode with as a passenger] say about how pissed they were that the rain of money wasn't coming down in the way they anticipated," Perry said.

If much of the workforce shifts toward the task economy as their primary sources of income, there will be a lot of slips and falls in the process. "If you don't protect yourself, you can get screwed," Perry said. "There is no easy money, still, even in the late tech boom age.

Recently the Department of Labor reemphasized concern over companies that might be claiming some people as independent contractors who should have been classified as employees. "When employers improperly classify employees as independent contractors, the employees may not receive important workplace protections such as the minimum wage, overtime compensation, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation," wrote Department of Labor Administrator David Weil. "Misclassification also results in lower tax revenues for government and an uneven playing field for employers who properly classify their workers."